09/11/2014

One of the core values of Arise&Be is "living fully: mind, body, heart and spirit." In order to live a full life, we need to be intentional about something that is a struggle for many women, SELF CARE. So this week, we're thrilled to have guest blogger, Tami Hackbarth, share her thoughts on why self care is essential to our goals of being productive, whole-hearted people. Thank you Tami!

I tried so hard not to roll my eyes at my mom when she shared this bit of wisdom with me as a teenager. In fact I’m pretty sure I almost pulled a muscle from trying not to roll my eyes in front of her. I didn’t want to be rude, but really.

What could my mom possibly know about life?

She is, well, my mom.

So on we went. She pretended not to notice the eye rolling and I pretended I was listening….

People can only love you as much as you love yourself.

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Recently I was lamenting that I wish someone had told me the secret to a happy, healthy life and it hit me.

Someone had.

My mom was right.

People can only love you as much as you love yourself.

If you don’t love you - and treat yourself well - how will anyone else?

People can only love you as much as you love yourself.

You may be saying, “of course I love myself! Who doesn’t?”

But really it comes down to this.

Self-care is a direct indicator to how much you love you.

If you aren’t making your own care a priority - are you really loving you?

If you are constantly exhausted from putting everyone’s needs before your own - are you really loving on you?

If you can’t remember the last time you felt rested, relaxed, refreshed, nourished, nurtured and abundant - are you really loving on you?

The secret to a healthy, happy life is self-care. The secret to loving your life is self-care. The secret to feeling loved and nurtured and nourished is, you guessed it, self-care.

When you are taking care of yourself, you are showing the world that you are important. You demonstrate to your family, friends and most of all to yourself, that you are worthy of deep, nurturing, nourishing self-care and love.

Self-care matters because WE matter.I learned this lesson the hard way. Of course.

Before I started taking care of myself, I mean really taking care of myself, I thought I was going to have to quit teaching - a job I absolutely love and believe is my calling - because I was so unhealthy, and unhappy.

I was working all the time, not making time for friends or family or fun. I was fueling myself on adrenaline, caffeine and sugar. I was skipping exercise and skimping on sleep - while suffering from massive anxiety and insomnia - just to keep my head above water. I thought I was doing the right thing because if you constantly feel behind, you just need to work longer and harder. Right?

Fast forward to a few years into the job. I was exhausted - physically and emotionally - and when my principal finally stepped in for an intervention of sorts -- he asked me if I was happy being a teacher and my answer was to sob in his office. I knew the jig was up.

I had to change what I was doing.

Enter restorative yoga.

What is restorative yoga?

Restorative yoga can be thought of active relaxation. It is different from the yoga you’ve probably experienced before. The biggest difference is that in restorative yoga we lie down with blankets, bolsters, blocks, straps, sandbags, over chairs and make ourselves very comfortable for up to 30 minutes per pose.

Yep, we lie down and relax our bodies and minds. That’s the yoga.

In other words, probably the most difficult part of the class/practice is making it there on time or actually setting aside time to do it. Or not falling asleep. Or weeping because you can’t believe how tired you are.

If you can easily get down on the floor and up again, we’re golden. We get comfy on the floor and let the props do the work. Our job in restorative yoga is to relax the body and hopefully the mind will follow.

Other people may have a more technical explanation, but I feel like lying down with the purpose of relaxing the body and brain is a good way to put it.

People have asked why I get so much out of a practice that essentially looks like I’m laying on the floor quietly doing nothing.

It does seems silly. Until you do it for a while and you realize some things about yourself.The last word:

So for some of you this restorative yoga (self care) may be hard. It may be the last, most least productive thing that you can think of doing but we want you to actually experience it for at least six weeks (15 minutes a day is all I ask) before you make the call that it has nothing to offer you.

What we resist is most often what we most need.

Remember what my mom said - people can only love you as much as you love yourself.

02/22/2013

getting ready to fill some frames (a long over-due project)... sorting through photos from the last few months and feeling inspired by this. such incredibly beautiful, honest images. i love my iphone, but i'm so glad i had my camera in hand to catch these:

my handsome little man... growing by leaps and bounds. loving 2 and all of the exploration that comes with it.

my stunning lady... not so little anymore. that wild hair that i'm so smitten with has been cut off now. and those eyelashes. i don't think i'll ever get enough. she's slowly finding her own voice and it's such a wonder.

and my newest little muse... miss gwyneth. being an aunt is so rad! not only do i get a little munchkin to love on, but i get to see the lives of her parents transform. so very proud of them...

02/06/2013

the newest sets of lovelies are available in our shop! we're keeping things simple this time with just one set of stamps and one set of 3x4 cards.

the stamps were designed to mix and match and we know they'll find their way into your everyday projects. you can purchase the whole set or individual stamps. (please note: stamp orders placed 2/5-2/8 will be shipped out 2/8 & 2/9. we apologize for the delay and are working with our vendor to avoid future issues. thanks for your patience!)

the 3x4 cards are RAD! they were printed with specialty inks that are neon pink and metallic gold... we LOVE them and we're hoping that they'll inspire you to send out some valentine's of your own.

thank you again for your support!

xoxo - mer & kins

to get to our shop, just click on the red shop button up to the right!

12/31/2012

thank you for making our first pop-up shop a huge success! the shop will be open through tonight and then i'll be closing it up... our plan is to be back up by the last week of january with more fun for you. (just in time for valentine's day, nudge, wink!) we're so excited to dream up new pretties!!! if you want to be added to our email list, shoot me your info at mertilton@gmail.com. for those of you that ordered from us, i have your info already and you will be getting the details for sure.

12/16/2012

thank you for all of the support and enthusiasm for the shop launch... there have been many of you from all over that have placed orders and it has been a blast for kinsey and i to see each order come through! you guys are so rad!!!

for those of you that have never played with unmounted rubber stamps before, here's a little tutorial to introduce you to the fun:

1. grab your ez mount mounting foam that came with your stamp and pull the release liner off of the sticky side.

2. using your scissors, cut out each stamp and place it on the sticky side of the mounting foam.

3. use your rotary cutter to trim down the mounting foam... if you are leaving your stamp as a rectangle/square you can use the rotary cutter to trim to the edge of your stamp.

4. if your stamp is a different shape, use your scissors to trim the mounting foam to the edge of your stamp.

now you can take the release liner off of the backside of your stamp and mount it right to your acrylic block... just like if you were using clear vinyl stamps. and stamp away!

the reason we went with unmounted rubber stamps was because we like that they take less storage space. if you'd like to take a look/get inspired by the most amazing stamp organization, you can check out kinsey's method here. crazy awesome!

if you have any questions, leave them in the comments and we'll get back to you.

12/11/2012

that's right!!! it's finally time to share a HUGE project i've been working on with the lovely and talented kinsey wilson (aka kinseygirl)...

we are proud and thrilled to bring you a pop-up shop with awesome product that can be used on all of your holiday projects!

just click on that cute shop link up on the right corner and you'll be able to check out all of the goodness we've got going on...

thank you ahead of time for sharing in the excitement with us (and yes maybe a few emotional tears - haha!). we've talked about doing something like this for a looong time, so it makes us over-the-moon giddy to be able to take action!!!

mer & kins

p.s. please note - since this is our first go at this quantities are limited, so once product is sold out that's it.

08/20/2012

back in october i had a whole lot of transitions going on in my world... and suddenly a girl that had become 95% mom had to let go of that role a little... and that friends, seemed like a terrifying task. i knew i had to fill this gift of time for myself with beautiful things so that i would cherish it. i read about an art class in berkeley that would be taught by one of the loveliest bloggers i knew. i'd be surrounded by creative spirits, able to spend time with some of my loves in san francisco and things felt right in my heart. so i took a leap of faith and signed up!

the class was everything i'd had hoped for… beautiful projects. stunning workspace. bright conversation. new smiling faces. friends to call home at night. and the blogger, elise, was even lovelier in person. i learned that elise and i had grown up in the same town and so we made plans to meet when she was home for the holidays. i was beyond excited to start this new friendship... i knew that she didn't just believe in magic, she believed in creating magic. and i knew i needed to create more of this in my life.

an adventerous sushi dinner, a breakfast and a lunch later... elise and i sat and chatted about the latest cha that she had attended. project life was mentioned several times and a few small dreams started to take shape... possibly even a dream job description was thrown out into the universe! but, they were just dreams at that point and it was going to take a lot of time and hard work before we ever got from here to there.

...until the following week when i got "the" phone call from elise... the game-changer - haha! it went a little like this...

elise: "guess who i just got off the phone with?!"

me: "i don't know, who?!"

elise: "becky higgins!!!!"

me: "seriously?!?!?!"

elise: "yes! she wants me to design product for a project life kit... and i told her about you and how we'd work out as a team. so if you're interested..."

for those of you that know me, this is where i start talking really, really fast because the rest of the details are just to dang exciting for me to contain my enthusiasm!!!! we really had created our own magic :)

and while there are a lot of fantastic details to share, i'd like to show off the newest project life kit: meet the seafoam edition!!!

... and send out a HUGE thank you to my friend elise for taking on this incredible adventure with me... she has been a dream to work with!!! her style is impeccable... gorgeous, bold graphics combined with a perfect mix of clean type. she really couldn't have been a better match for me to work with.

- thank you elise for bringing me on board with you... love you!!!

we've been working diligently on this project since february, so there are a lot of parts from the process to share. you can check back here or over at elise's site for details over the next few months.

thank you all for sharing in our excitement as we FINALLY get to share out super huge secret!